Washington Post and The Atlantic
I’ve been meaning to post about a few recent mentions of Minus. The Washington Post article by Will Oremus has me (happily) countering a statement from Facebook VP Nick Clegg, and talking about how Minus shows that social networks without feed algorithms can avoid some of big social’s problems. Ian Bogost’s post in The Atlantic and the Newsweek piece are both focusing on how smaller size networks that, like Minus, eschew scale, may chart a new direction forward.
I have a couple of invited events at SXSW 2022 in Austin. The first is that my film ORDER OF MAGNITUDE is part of the SXSW Art Program. The second is that I’ll give an invited talk, titled Techniques of Resistance in a Platform World, as part of the design track. The film is up from March 7-15 and the talk is on March 12th.
Paper published in Electronic Book Review
Last summer I gave a paper at the Electronic Literature Organization conference, where I talked about doomscrolling—using my 2020 project The Endless Doomscroller alongside theories by Wendy Chun, Christian Andersen and Sören Pold, and many others—examining the role that platform interfaces have played in our last two years software-enabled collective descent into despair.
Centre Pompidou Logo
My film ORDER OF MAGNITUDE will be part of Réseaux-mondes at Centre Pompidou in Paris, running from 23 Feb to 25 Apr, 2022. Specifically, the work is part of an included video installation from The Wrong TV curated by David Quilles Guilló.
February 2022 issue of UN Today
I gave an interview with UN Today, the official magazine of the United Nations in Geneva. We spoke mostly about my new social platform Minus.
On the list of didn’t expect this, my social network Minus—and its descriptive tagline “finite social network”—was named technology trend #4 of 10 “to watch” by global marketing agency Wunderman Thompson in its annual and highly read trends report.
Read the full report, titled The Future 100: Trends and Change to Watch in 2022.
Review of Software for Less in Hyperallergic
My solo exhibition Software for Less at arebyte Gallery, London received a significant amount of press. Here are links to a selection of it. Many are reviews of the show as a whole. Some are discussions about a specific work, such as Minus.
ORDER OF MAGNITUDE at NeMe Arts Center, Cyprus
My work ORDER OF MAGNITUDE will be part of Through the Mesh at NeMe Arts Center in Limassol, Cyprus. Curated by Patrick Lichty, this exhibition “features the work of artists who initially began to investigate the cultural space of the networks, biopolitical and informatic; who challenge or jam it. The artworks look at electronic networks as scopophilic and performative, the asymmetric regimes of power they project, and the positive uses of “darkside” technologies. These areas of investigation open the media archaeologies of the panoptic network, its modalities, and the spaces of criticism, humour and progressivism. From the era of the Cold War in which the “net” was created to assure communication, Through the Mesh: Media, Borders, and Firewalls seeks to consider the conditions of the contemporary landscape and suggest progressive strategies for the future.”
As part of the exhibition, I spoke with artist/curator Patrick Lichty about Facebook/Meta as unchecked corporate power, FB’s Metaverse as the next wave in workplace hypersurveillance, shifting political ideologies in Silicon Valley, TikTok’s negative effects on sleep, and of course, more.
Through the Mesh opens 9 Dec 2021 and closes 20 Jan 2022.
I spoke about my social platform Minus with Renata Simões of TV Cultura (Brazil Public Television). The player should queue up at the start of our chat, but just in case it doesn’t, it’s 3 minutes in.
Wired Magazine, November 2021
I recently spoke with Louise Matsakis at Wired Magazine about some recent changes at TikTok, looking at how the app is getting increasingly pushy about building out your friend network and submitting your contact info. My TikTok work Not For You also gets a mention.